Two Bounces, One Buttock: How to Play With (and Against) a Wheelchair Player

A player in a sport chair rolls up to open play, drops a paddle in the rack, and waits their turn. What happens next is usually one of two things, and both are bad.

In the first version, the standing players decide this is a charity game. Everybody dinks softly to the chair, hits everything hard at the chair player’s partner, and says “nice shot!” a little too loudly. In the second, somebody ends up as the chair player’s partner and turns into a golden retriever, chasing every ball on the court, including the ones that were obviously going to the chair player. Who is good at pickleball, by the way, and would like to hit some.

Neither group has read Section 25 of the rulebook. Almost nobody has. Time to fix that.

The year chair pickleball got its own stage

In June, USA Pickleball held its first Wheelchair National Championships in Colorado Springs. Fifty-two athletes from 16 states played 278 officiated matches across singles, doubles, and hybrid doubles (one chair player, one standing player), and more than 80% of them entered all three events. Nationals starts in San Diego on October 31 with wheelchair and hybrid draws at three skill levels. DUPR announced in March that it’s building a dedicated wheelchair rating.

And the 2026 rulebook gave adaptive play its own part, Part IV, which says its rules that aren’t tournament-specific “apply to all play, both standard and tournament.” Section 25 isn’t an appendix for sanctioned events. It’s in effect at your park right now.

What Section 25 actually says

A quick tour of the 2026 rulebook, with rule numbers so you can win the argument.

Anyone in a chair is a wheelchair player. Rule 25.A.1 defines one as “any person, with or without a disability, who plays the game in a wheelchair.” Hold that thought.

The chair is part of the body. Rule 25.A.4 says so, and adds that the large rear wheels “are treated like a standing player’s legs for positioning.” Combine that with Rule 10.C.3 (ball hits player, fault on that player) and a ball off the chair is a fault on the chair player, exactly like a ball off your shoe.

The kitchen line lives under the big wheels. Under Rule 25.A.10, the front casters and rear stabilizing wheels “may contact the non-volley zone at any time.” It’s a fault only when a large rear wheel touches the kitchen on a volley. Serving works the same way (25.A.8): big wheels behind the baseline, front wheels free to hang over. Kitchen and service foot faults are the only faults you’re allowed to call on an opponent in an unofficiated game (Rule 9.B.3), so get this part right. If you’ve been calling faults on a footplate, stop.

Two bounces, and the second can land anywhere. Rule 25.A.9 lets a chair player let the ball bounce twice. The first bounce has to be in, and the second can be “anywhere on the playing surface,” including well outside the lines. A third bounce is a fault. That’s why the rulebook recommends a 44-by-74-foot playing surface for wheelchair play (25.A.11). The standard minimum is 30 by 60.

At least one buttock. We’re quoting. Rule 25.A.5 says a chair player “must have at least one buttock in contact with the wheelchair seat when they strike the ball.” We’ve read a lot of rulebooks, and this is the best sentence in any of them.

The extra bounce belongs to the player, not the team. In hybrid doubles the standing partner gets one bounce like everybody else, unless they’re an adaptive standing player who qualifies under 25.B.3 and declares it before the match (25.C.3).

Two bounces doesn’t shrink the court. It moves it.

The myth at most rec courts is that two bounces is a giant freebie. Look at what it actually buys.

A ball traveling away from the net takes its second bounce farther back than its first. So the allowance pulls short balls toward the chair player: a drop that lands in the kitchen can come to them instead of them going to get it. Deep balls get no help. A drive that lands near the baseline takes its second bounce out by the fence, so the chair player either takes it on one bounce, same as you, or chases it backward.

That’s why Sportable’s hybrid guidelines note that many chair players set up farther back from the kitchen than standing players are used to, and tell the standing partner that the chair player “may be able to reach a short return or third-shot drop more easily than you.” The low ball in the transition zone that you hate might be a gift for them.

What the extra bounce can’t replace is everything your legs do. A chair can’t split-step. It can’t lunge, cross over, or shuffle. Changing direction means stopping the chair and starting it again, often while pushing a wheel with the paddle still in hand. Getting to the ball is the hard part of chair pickleball, and the second bounce is the rulebook paying for the split step a chair player doesn’t have.

If you’re the standing partner

Sportable’s two pages are the best partnering advice we’ve read in a while, for any kind of doubles.

Don’t poach. The chair player sitting deeper “is not an invitation to step directly in front of your partner and take their balls out of the air.” If they got pulled wide and can’t reach the next one, or they call for you to take it, take it. Otherwise it’s their ball. We have opinions about poaching in general, and they apply double here. Covering behind your partner, on lobs and balls that get past them, is always fine.

Let them miss. One of Sportable’s goals for hybrid play is “allowing your partner the pain of errors.” Nobody improves when their partner takes all their balls.

Check your rating before you volunteer. Sportable says standing partners in its program should be no higher than 3.5 for most chair players, and that chair players should be hitting winners against standing opponents some of the time. If that isn’t happening, the standing player is too good for the game. The 4.5 who shows up to “carry” a chair player isn’t helping anybody. They’ve found a new way to play singles.

Talk first: who takes the middle, what word means “yours,” who goes back for a lob over you. That’s good advice for any new partnership.

And keep your hands off the chair. It’s part of their body, so don’t lean on it or hang your towel on it, and definitely don’t steady yourself on it with your feet in the kitchen. Under 25.A.10.a, if your partner volleys while you’re touching them and standing in the kitchen, it’s a fault on them.

If you’re across the net

Play your game. The soft-ball charity routine is condescending, and it’s bad strategy too, because you’re feeding a chair player exactly the short, slow balls the two-bounce rule helps with most.

The opposite mistake is just as common: never hitting to the chair at all and slamming every ball at the standing player at the kitchen line. That’s the toughest target in pickleball, and you’re picking it every time.

What works against a chair player is what works on everybody: make them change direction. A deep ball followed by a short one asks the chair to stop, reverse, and restart. Balls into the chair are as fair as balls at a standing player’s feet, and chair players know exactly where their wheels are. They’ll happily return the favor at your shoelaces.

Two more things cost you nothing. First, clear the runoff. The second bounce can land anywhere on the playing surface, so the paddle bags against the back fence and the next foursome standing behind the baseline are in the way. Your park courts are already tighter than the 44-by-74 the rulebook recommends.

Second, leave the third bounce alone. Under Rule 9.B.3 it’s not yours to call. It’s the chair player’s call, the same way your double bounce is yours.

Go sit in the chair

Back to Rule 25.A.1: anyone who plays in a wheelchair is a wheelchair player. If your club, rec center, or local adaptive sports program has a loaner sport chair, play a game in it. The ball you’d normally lunge for will just be gone. Backing up for a lob will feel like parallel parking. And the kitchen line feels different when it’s under your axle instead of your toes.

Chip Parmelly, a former Paralympic wheelchair tennis medalist who founded the U.S. Wheelchair Pickleball Association, told New Mobility why the game works from a chair: “It’s less physically demanding than wheelchair tennis, making the game more accessible to people of all fitness levels.”

Pickleball’s whole pitch is that anyone can play. Wheelchair players took the sport at its word. The least the rest of us can do is read the rules.